SAP NEWSBYTE - To drive real-time, insight-driven planning processes, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the planned availability of SAP® liveCache technology powered by the SAP HANA® platform. This introduction of SAP HANA is intended to deliver opportunities for deployments of the SAP® Advanced Planning and Optimizer (SAP APO) component. This announcement follows other recent efforts SAP has made demonstrating continued innovation and investment in the area of supply chain management, including the launch of the latest version of the SAP® Transportation Management application and plans to acquire SmartOps, a leading provider of inventory and service-level optimization software solutions.

Supply chain companies today work in an environment in which planning cycles are shortened and the lines between tactical planning and execution are becoming blurred. The companies thriving in this environment treat the supply chain as a strategic initiative and use their understanding of the market and fluctuating demand patterns to adjust their supply plans in real time. Planned benefits of SAP APO powered by SAP HANA include:

Decision-making based on near real-time information, including forecast accuracy, stock coverage, supply projection

Dashboards for different use cases, including analytical workflows, for APO-based planning scenarios

Reduction of hardware costs due to no dedicated server requirement

Reduced cost and efforts for IT to setup, administer and maintain SAP liveCache powered by SAP HANA

Simplified back up and recovery of data

Performance and scalability improvements leveraging the power of SAP HANA

Quick response to customer inquiries, resulting in improved customer service and increased sales

Powered by SAP HANA, SAP liveCache aims to be the foundation architecture for future innovations for SAP APO powered by SAP HANA and will be a significant step forward for the overall offering of the SAP® Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) application powered by SAP HANA.

“Right now, we are in the era of the real-time, demand-driven supply chains,” said Hans Thalbauer, senior vice president, Line-of-Business Solutions for Supply Chain, SAP. “By leveraging the power of SAP HANA for the supply chain, we arm our customers with the most effective tools for intelligent reporting at the fastest speeds.”